NOUS41 KWBC 051527
PNSWSH
Service Change
Notice 13-21
National Weather
Service Headquarters Washington DC
1146 AM EST Fri
Mar 8 2013
TO: Subscribers:
-Family of Services
-NOAA Weather Wire Service
-Emergency Managers Weather
Information Network
-NOAAPORT
Other NWS Partners and NWS employees
From: John Murphy
Director, NWS Office of Science and
Technology
Subject: Changes
to Observations from USRCRN on or about
April 6, 2013
US Regional
Climate Reference Network (USRCRN) Precipitation
measurements from southwest region sites will be phased
out over
several months beginning on or about April 6, 2013.
The current
challenging and uncertain budget environment is
requiring NWS to conduct a thorough review of
non-mission
critical functions. The USRCRN was intended to be a
nationwide
network of over 500 sites performing high-quality
temperature and
precipitation observations at a spatial resolution
sufficient to
detect climate variations on a regional scale over
the
continental United States. Due to budget constraints,
the
deployment of sites was halted after 70 sites had been
installed.
Areas covered
included Alabama and the southwest region states of
Colorado,
Utah, New Mexico and Arizona.
This action is
proposed to mitigate the potential release of
hazardous materials from the precipitation sensor
should adequate
funds not be available to continue normal
operation and
maintenance of the network. Since there are no such
environmental
issues with the temperature sensors, temperature
measurements at
the USRCRN sites will continue.
Although the
observations from the USRCRN sites provide value for
climate monitoring in supplementing observations
from other
available observing systems in those areas, the USRCRN
systems
are not required for NWS to perform its
operational mission.
Because
maintenance will be completed at the Alabama sites,
precipitation measurements from these sites are planned to
continue through next fiscal year. In addition,
temperature
measurements from all sites are also planned to continue
through
the next fiscal year.
Information on
the USRCRN program can be found at:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/usrcrn/
Data from the
Southwest Regional USRCRN observations affected by
this change are located at:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/crn/observations.htm?group=usrcrn
For questions
concerning these changes, please contact:
Bobby Martinez
NOAA/NWS/OST
Silver Spring, MD
20910
301-713-3391 ext 166
National Public
Information Statements are available on line at:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/notif.htm
$$